Dr. Malcolm Sears, researcher at St. Joseph’s Healthcare Hamilton and professor of medicine at McMaster University, has been named joint winner of the prestigious 2016 J. Allyn Taylor International Prize in Medicine.

An internationally-renowned respirologist and epidemiologist, Dr. Sears leads the Canadian Healthy Infant Longitudinal Development (CHILD) Study—one of the largest studies in the world to look in depth at how our genes and the environment interact in early life to cause asthma, allergies and other chronic illnesses.

The Robarts Research Institute of Western University in London, ON, awards the prize annually to scientists who have made significant contributions to a field within one of the Institute’s principal areas of research. The 2016 Prize recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions in the area of chronic lung disease, including asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).